Coming Soon: Tweets, Vines Set to Play on U.S. Movie Screens This Summer

Todd Spangler

Entertainment-related tweets and six-second Vine videos are set to splash onto movie screens across the country starting this summer, through a deal between Twitter and in-theater advertising company National CineMedia.

Under the pact, NCM-affiliated theaters are expected to begin running a 1-minute weekly show focused on trending movie and entertainment content, powered by Twitter and Vine, starting in mid-2014. The programming will invite moviegoers to interact via hashtags, with the potential that their own tweets could be featured in the stream.

Currently, NCM and Twitter do not have any sponsors lined up for the series. NCM is still developing the on-screen format, after which the companies plan to start approaching brand sponsors. The social-media company is distributing the branded content through the Twitter Amplify video-promotion tool, which counts several TV networks and media companies as partners.

Cliff Marks, president of sales and marketing with NCM Media Networks, tubthumped the pact as an opportunity to reach socially minded movie fans. "Twitter has become an amazing barometer of movie trends, and this new show will take theater audiences beyond the red-carpet for an original look inside the world of movies," he said in a statement.

NCM sells ads that are displayed in theaters -- collectively representing 19,800 screens - owned by AMC Entertainment, Cinemark Holdings, Regal Entertainment Group and other regional theater chains. The Twitter-powered show will be distributed to movie theaters nationwide through NCM's FirstLook preshow program.